Thunderbird Club

[ubernator]

So, how are those OLP Stingrays compared to the real stuff and a Thunderbird?

i got my olp when they first came out, I was impressed with the quality for the price, and body finish and matching headstock was really cool. The finish on the back of the neck is nothing like the real thing, and the fit and finish is decent, but not at the level of the real thing. The pickup was nothing special, I put a Warwick MEC pickup from an FNA and basic v/t CTS 250k pots, and that made it sound much better. I have plans for the basslines preamp, the small one with the concentric bass/treble pot attached to the chip. There is just enough room under the plate where the 3rd pot was, to tuck a 9v, no routing needed.

Quality wise it is very similar to my Korean goth, but they are different beasts entirely, the OLP with upgraded electronics is punchier than the bird, but birds don't sound like Rays anyway. The OLP has the same type of bridge that the SBMM sub has.

 

[Count Bassie]

Not a big Slade fan but definitely way better than the sodding Osmonds.

Next band project name!

 

[Korladis]

Posted Yob earlier, but among other bands of T-bird users, there's Noothgrush, who I like a lot:

 

[Drestakil]

Next band project name!

At my age the next band project name would Jerry Atrics and the Pacemakers.

 

[Dadagoboi]

i got my olp when they first came out, I was impressed with the quality for the price, and body finish and matching headstock was really cool. The finish on the back of the neck is nothing like the real thing, and the fit and finish is decent, but not at the level of the real thing. The pickup was nothing special, I put a Warwick MEC pickup from an FNA and basic v/t CTS 250k pots, and that made it sound much better. I have plans for the basslines preamp, the small one with the concentric bass/treble pot attached to the chip. There is just enough room under the plate where the 3rd pot was, to tuck a 9v, no routing needed.

Quality wise it is very similar to my Korean goth, but they are different beasts entirely, the OLP with upgraded electronics is punchier than the bird, but birds don't sound like Rays anyway. The OLP has the same type of bridge that the SBMM sub has.

Nice review! First thing I did with my OLP was shoot gloss nitro clear on the neck like my '77.

IMO the first generation two band preamp Leo Fender StingRay with it's Alnico magnet pickup does have the capability to sound like a vintage Thunderbird. The 'activeness' of the bass is minimal. It sounds very big but not harsh like many ceramic magnet/ 3 band pre systems can.

 

[Klondike]

Posted Yob earlier, but among other bands of T-bird users, there's Noothgrush, who I like a lot:

Didn't understand a single word he screemed, i get the point though.

 

[wolfkeller]

Here's a killer deal for all your righty wierdos lol.

EPIPHONE Thunderbird lV bass

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

EPIPHONE Thunderbird lV bass in very good condition (few blemishes from playing live) passive stock pick ups, but still has a good punch! NO CASE. $150 obo

 

[Gaolee]

You can get a lot out of it doing simple stuff. If you can learn a couple basic approaches, like a surf-rock pattern or a simple blues feel, that can set you into a groove. Keeping it real simple will get you there.

Terry Bozzio, I ain't trying to go there... ha.

I have started playing out on the kit. It's an absolute blast. I'll never give up bass in any of its forms, but I'll probably never give up drums, either, now that I started playing them a lot.

 

[Gaolee]

There was a lot of terrible music around when I was young - which at the time obscured all of the truly great music which was also around.

Exactly. The same is true now. I don't generally figure out what I really like until it has lasted and percolated along for ten years or more.

 

[Klondike]

At work(i run heavy equipment) most guys listen to the radio and I get so tired of the same crap "music" that when I DO listen to the radio its usually talk radio. Lol

 

[Count Bassie]

At work(i run heavy equipment) most guys listen to the radio and I get so tired of the same crap "music" that when I DO listen to the radio its usually talk radio. Lol

Same. You shouldn't let music become something you don't like...

 

[Christine]

Exactly. The same is true now. I don't generally figure out what I really like until it has lasted and percolated along for ten years or more.

So true! In the UK there is some truly awful noises (just can't begin to describe some of it as music). Radio has become a thing of the past for me now, I just tend to listen to my records or sometimes specific era internet radio at work when the office is empty

 

[TBird1958]

Don't really get the appeal of Slade, personally, but then plenty of people would say that about the music I listen to.

That's a pretty common opinion about them, Slade were a very U.K. working class band, it just didn't seem to have the same appeal on this side of the Atlantic. At that point in time there really wasn't a band in the U.S that was anything like them, they were in many ways responsible for many very popular bands that came along later.
There were a lot popular bands I just never "got", or saw the appeal of, i.e. Greatful Dead.

 

[EdO.]

You talkin' to me?

I own a mint '77 Sting Ray which I got in a straight for my first white '77 Bicentennial in '84. It's lived under my bed ever since because it weighs 12 lbs but it's a GREAT sounding 2 band active ALNICO pickup bass. My late 90's OLP Stingray OTOH is very light, plays well and sounds totally generic. I have an original 70s Stingray preamp I've been planning to install in it along with a Seymour Duncan repro pickup so I can sell the pristine '77. Too many projects.

As you know, I own a replacement '77 Bicen, it's also expendable...and the black butchered one is going on the blockwhen I restore it.

I'll be perfectly happy with my '60s TBirds and the retro'd OLP.

Thanks for asking!

My '80 Stingray is identical to yours and also in excellent condition even despite the fact that it was my main player for probably 15 years +/-. Probably the one bass I'm most likely to die still owning. Mine's only 10 lbs though so maybe that makes the difference?

 

[kat888]

Exactly. The same is true now. I don't generally figure out what I really like until it has lasted and percolated along for ten years or more.

I'll check something out if one of the Manic Street Preachers says it's good, or him indoors will buy a CD and I'll work out that Paul Weller has mentioned it.

That's probably how I discovered Savages - think Siouxsie and the Banshees and Valerie Solanis meets Rowland S Howard and the Gang of Four - and coincidentally I was watching this KEXP youtube the other day.



If I listen to music on the radio it's classical or jazz. My jamming buddy makes it his business to keep up with 'the kids' and is horrified at my complete cluelessness about the top 40 etc, but you know life is short and there are times you have to make a choice between John Coltrane and whatever 'product' is at number 1 this week.

 

[Dadagoboi]

Mine's only 10 lbs though so maybe that makes the difference?

Possibly!

 

[Dluxe]

Mine is 9 pounds 8 ounces.

 

[kat888]

Mine is 9 pounds 8 ounces.

View attachment 1039558

The weird thing about those MM basses is in all the years I don't recall ever seeing one in the flesh, let alone playing one. Ps, Js, various Gibsons, Rics, Yamaha, Aria, Ibanez, Steinberger etc - never a MM. They have always looked solid, like a proper 'axe'.

 

[Stevis]

Not a big Slade fan but definitely way better than the sodding Osmonds.

I am going to be having music nightmares, as this conversation has reminded me of the awful music I was exposed to growing up. ["Twilight Zone" Theme here with Rod Serling voice over] Imagine if you will . . . growing up in a town of 800, where the closest "city" was Fargo, ND (and nowhere near as fun/funny as movie or TV series). Until the "Midnight Special," all the music on TV in my house was "Hee Haw," "Donnie and Marie" AND an hour-long show of POLKA music. I had no older sibs to introduce me to cool stuff. My dad liked old (and bad) country (Tammy Wynette as opposed to Johnny Cash). As a teen, I would go to a record shop and look for "weird" album covers: Bowie, Mott the Hoople, and early Sabbath.

To this day, I can't believe that they carried it but on one trip I found/bought a copy of Ian Drury and the Blockheads' "New Boots and Panties". There was a track on it, titled: "Plaisto Patricia". It began with him spouting a plethora of vulgarities. I loved to crank it to see if my parents were paying attention (which they weren't). Around this same time, I was lucky that my folks indulged me and bought me my first bass and amp. I would hold up in my room trying to learn basslines from songs on Joe Jackson's "Look Sharp" or Elvis Costello's "This Years Model". Unfortunately, I didn't find any bandmates until college.

There is a lot of pop crap out today as there was then. Good terrestrial radio has gone the way of the dodo bird. I happen across new stuff through YouTube and algorithms on my Pandora "stations". What's old is new - it is all grounded in the genres I loved in 80s and 90s (garage rock/post-punk).

 

[GBassNorth]

There was a lot of terrible music around when I was young - which at the time obscured all of the truly great music which was also around.

The best we had was a 'light entertainment' program on the telly on Saturdays with a house band playing covers of top 40 hits, which at the time were guaranteed to be middle of the road sludge, or an occasional original band on one of the Sunday talent shows.

And then this happened:



It seems so tame now and yet my grandfather was looking for his bayonet...

Can't say I've ever heard of SW before but it was a pretty good performance. Lead singer looks like a Freddie Mercury and Dave Bowie love child, what year was the clip from?

On a side note, my parents who were born in the early 1920's didn't like my Black Sabbath or Lead Zeppelin LPs (too frantic for them) so I'd put a Grateful Dead LP on for a while, which they thought sounded better until they figured out all the counter culture and experiential mind alterering fun that went along with it (gotta love the teddy bears). The one band they never minded me playing was Pink Floyd (of course I never exposed them to The Wall video).